A novel oil separation process triggered by salt using mannosylerythritol lipids as biodemulsifier

[Display omitted] •Salt-triggered demulsification process using MELs was developed.•Excellent demulsification performance was obtained by this present approach.•This approach has great potential for oil separation in the petroleum industry. Due to increasing worldwide oil pollution, eco-friendly oil...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inSeparation and purification technology Vol. 357; p. 130038
Main Authors Xie, Qiaomei, Guo, Mingda, Yu, Fei, Zhao, Mengqian, Cao, Rong, Wu, Yefei, Lyu, Zhengyong, Long, Xuwei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.05.2025
Subjects
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

Loading…
More Information
Summary:[Display omitted] •Salt-triggered demulsification process using MELs was developed.•Excellent demulsification performance was obtained by this present approach.•This approach has great potential for oil separation in the petroleum industry. Due to increasing worldwide oil pollution, eco-friendly oil separation processes have become crucial. This study reports a novel two-step demulsification process triggered by salt based on biosurfactant mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs) for efficient oil separation. Although the MELs alone stabilized the emulsion, the emulsifying activity lost rapidly in the presence of a salt due to precipitation of MELs. Two strategies based on this finding were developed for demulsification and complete oil separation and demulsification were obtained when 2.5–5 g/L MELs were added in the presence of 2 g/L NaCl. Furthermore, the separated oil had an extremely low water content of 0.1–1.9 g/L, which was much lower than that reported in many previous studies. Due to the high demulsification efficiency, environmental friendliness, and cost-efficiency, this process based on MELs shows great potential for oil recovery in petroleum-related industries.
ISSN:1383-5866
DOI:10.1016/j.seppur.2024.130038